A BREAD RIOT
It would be difficult for any one to appear more absolutely dumbfounded
than von Erstein when I delivered my ultimatum and got up.
That I had scared him, his chalk-white cheeks showed unmistakably,
while the quiver of his lips, clenched hands, and the fierce light in
his piggish little eyes testified to his rage. He jumped up instantly
to stop my going.
"Don't go, Lassen, at all events in that way. Let's talk it over," he
clamoured. "The thing can be explained and we can come to an
understanding."
"You swine!" I growled. "Get out of the way or I shall forget I'm in
your room and lay my hands on you."
He tried not to wince, but was too much of a cur. "Look here, I'm not
going to utter a word about that Hanover business. I swear that," he
said as I went to the door.
"You've done it already, you lying hypocrite. You know that; and so do
I. I've heard of it, and I shall hear if you say any more. And by
Heaven, if you dare to say another syllable about it, I'll--well, keep
out of my way afterwards, that's all"; and I left him to judge for
himself what I would do.
I had to go. I should have mauled the brute if I'd stopped. I was mad
with fury; and I walked off, unable for the time to think of anything
but his disgusting cowardice and bestiality. I'm no saint, and don't
pretend to be one; but this brute's infernal plan to get Nessa into his
power was more than flesh and blood could stand. I believe, anyway I
hope, I should have felt just as hot if any other girl had been
concerned.
I ramped about the streets, taking little notice where I went, and it
was not until some of my fury had cooled that I began to consider what
steps I ought to take. I was glad I had lost my temper and gone for
him; but after a while it began to dawn on me that I had blundered
badly. All I needed was to gain a few days' delay; and it would have
been far more diplomatic if I had seemed to fall in with his plans and
just made a few excuses to account for any inaction.
But one can't always be worrying about diplomacy; and anyhow the beggar
was thoroughly scared. Probably he'd be just as much put to it to hit
on a new offensive as I was to decide what to do next; and whatever
happened I wasn't going to be sorry I'd let myself go. What I was sorry
for was that I hadn't been able to "go" with my hands instead of only
words.
It wouldn't do merely to twiddle my thumbs, however; and after a while
it struck me that the best thing would be to get another interview with
old Gratz and just tell him the whole pretty story. If it did no good,
it would do no harm, and certainly it would prepare him for any other
scheme by von Erstein to prove Nessa to be a spy.
At this point some one clapped me on the shoulder. "Hallo, Cousin
Johann, whatever are you doing in this out-of-the-way place?"
It was Hans. "If it comes to that, what are you doing, young man?"
"There's a shindy on in the Untergasse, and I've been watching it. A
lot of women kicking up a row about food, or something. It looked like
getting warm, so I thought it time to go home."
"Let's go and look at it," I said directly. I had heard rumours in
England about bread riots and rather liked the idea of seeing one for
myself, and I recalled what the tailor had said about it.
The place was close at hand; and sure enough there was a big crowd and
a noisy one, too. Quite a couple of hundred women with a sprinkling of
men, and as much noise as at an Irish faction fight. We stood a minute
or two at the corner of the street when Hans caught sight of a friend,
and asking me to wait for him, ran off.
I observed that although there were police about, the tailor was right
in saying they were not taking the usual steps to stop the row; and I
noticed also that the crowd was growing in numbers and moving in my
direction.
Then came the sound of smashing glass, with loud shouts from the women
who clustered round the spot where the smash had been, and I went down
the street far enough to see that a baker's shop had been forced.
The police interfered then; but it was too late, and there were too few
of them. Moreover, the mob had tasted blood, or rather smelt food; and
soon afterwards there was another smash; this time a provision shop.
The crowd had been allowed to get out of hand; and I saw some of the
police rush away, presumably to telephone for more men.
I was standing in the road at that moment and had to skip aside to
avoid an open car which came rattling down the street toward the mob.
An old lady and a girl were in the car, and as they passed me, the
latter stood up and called excitedly to the chauffeur to stop.
If it hadn't been a German he would never have been fool enough to have
attempted to enter the street at all; but I suppose he had been told to
take that route, and his instinct of slavish obedience to orders did
the rest. The result was what any one might have foreseen.
He was too late to turn back, and his one chance to get through was to
have driven bang into the crowd and trusted to luck to clear a way. As
it was, he came to a halt on the very verge of the crowd; and in less
time than it takes to tell it, the car was the centre of a yelping,
hungry mob of viragos to whom the sight of rich people in a costly car
was like a good meal spread before a lot of famished wild beasts.
Worse than this, moreover, was the fact that some ruffians who had been
hanging back began to push their way toward the car, whose occupants
were calling for the police. They might as well have cried for the
moon; and every cry was greeted with jeers and yells of anger from the
women around. The trouble soon thickened.
One woman more reckless than the rest started a shout to have the two
out of the car, and herself jumped on the step, grabbed the chauffeur,
who seemed about paralyzed with fright, lugged him off his seat, and
the crowd hustled and jabbed and cuffed him, till he was lost in the
throng. Then some one opened the door of the car, and made a snatch at
the dress of the girl, who set up screaming.
This was too much; so I shoved and shouldered my way through, pushed
aside the woman who had tried to grab the girl, and urged the two
panic-stricken ladies to come out. They hesitated, however, and a
filthy hooligan with a long iron-shod bludgeon barked curses at me for
a Junker and aimed a vicious blow at my head. I managed to dodge it,
and jabbed him one in return on the mouth which sent him staggering
back and enabled me to snatch his stick away.
Armed with this, I soon cleared a space about the car and again urged
the two frightened occupants to leave it. The girl jumped out at once
and had to help her mother, while I kept the mob at bay, and then
fought a sort of rearguard action in miniature.
But we hadn't a dog's chance of escape. The mother was half an invalid,
and could only move very slowly, while the women round, furious at
being baulked of their prey and led by the brute I had hit and a couple
of his cronies who had come up meanwhile, surged round us like a lot of
devils gone mad.
We reached the pavement, however, and as I spied a deepish doorway, I
changed my tactics and made for it, treating some of those who stood in
the way pretty roughly. We were able to gain the doorway all right, and
I hustled my two charges into momentary safety behind me and told the
girl to keep hammering at the door till some one opened it, while I
tried to keep the crowd back.
It was no picnic; but I reckoned on being able to stem the rush for the
minute or so until some one came in reply to the girl's knocking. It
was in our favour that the fight we had already put up had rendered
some of those in the front of the crowd a little chary about coming too
close; and as the doorway was very narrow and the stick I had captured
a long one, I put it across the outside, thus forming a useful barrier,
and was able to hold it in position by standing back at arm's length,
and thus almost out of reach of both the hands and feet of those in
front.
To my dismay, however, no attempt was made to let us enter the house,
although the girl had kept up an incessant knocking. The mob soon
tumbled to this and things began to look ugly. The old lady, scared to
death and ill, was on the verge of collapse; the daughter, almost
equally panicky and alarmed by her mother's condition, stopped
hammering at the door and bent over her; the crowd was getting more
furious every moment; those at the back began to push those in front
forward, the brute I had struck first came on with the rest, and I came
in for some pretty hot smacks and kicks.
But the little barrier of the stick kept off the worst, and, as every
second was of vital importance, since help might come from a
reinforcement of the police, I took the gruelling and just held on.
A couple more invaluable minutes were gained in this way when another
of the men, a dirty little red-haired beggar, more wary than the
others, tumbled to the weak spot in my defence--my hold on the stick.
He tried his fists on my hands first, and finding that was no good he
whipped out a pocket knife and jabbed me with it.
I loosed the right hand and dropped him with a tap on the nose which
brought the blood in a stream and gave him something else to think
about. But his two companions had seen his little dodge and made ready
to flatter it with imitation, so I had to adopt other tactics.
I was pretty reckless by that time, and in no mood to be man-handled by
a set of German roughs; so I changed the barrier into a weapon of
offence; it made a fine sort of pike with its ironshod end; and I used
it without scruple or mercy. I drove it slap into the face of the man
who had struck me first, then into the chest of the fellow next him,
and lastly downed a third with a crack on the skull.
That accounted for all the men and took off a lot of the edge of the
crowd's appetite for more. They fell back a pace or two and I stepped
in front of the archway, swung the bludgeon over my head and swore that
I'd brain the first person, man or woman, who moved a single foot
forward.
Nobody in the front ranks seemed in any hurry to accept the invitation;
but again those at the back, who had no knowledge of the happenings,
began to shove forward, and slowly the people in front were pushed
forward against their will and despite their efforts to resist the
pressure.
The result was plain. I couldn't break every head in sight, of course,
and I was at my wit's end what to do, when a really happy thought
occurred to me. I had a lot of small money in my pocket, whipped it
out, and sent it scattering into the street.
"If it's money you want, there it is," I shouted at the top of my lung
power, and sent a second lot after the first.
It was a truly gorgeous scheme. I yelled loud enough for nearly all to
hear, and the flash of the coins did the rest; the pressure round the
mouth of our shelter was relieved instantly, and both back and front
rows joined in a fearsome scramble in the middle of the road, where I
had been careful to shy the money. I never saw a finer scrimmage in my
life.
"We can go," I called to the couple behind me, seeing that the pavement
was clear enough for us to get away. But the elder woman had fallen and
was incapable of any effort whatever.
"Have you any small money?" I asked the girl. "My own's all gone."
She felt her own pockets and in the handbag on her mother's arm and
gave all she could find.
It was enough to keep the crowd busy for another minute or two, and I
stepped out, and just as the people were easing off from the first
diversion of the scramble, I yelled out that there was more to come,
and flung the whole lot broadcast among the tossing heads, taking care
to shy it as far down the street as possible. There was an instant rush
for it.
I slipped back into the doorway, picked up the old lady and made a dash
for it, telling the girl to bring the stick with her and keep close to
the houses, which by that time were all shut and barred.
We managed to get some yards toward the street corner when two of the
men who had given us trouble spied us, and, thinking that I was now
unarmed, came rushing in pursuit, calling to a lot of the others to
follow.
They soon overtook us, and there was nothing for it but to put up
another fight, this time without the friendly help of a doorway. I laid
my burden on the pavement, took the stick from the girl, and turned to
face the oncomers. The instant they saw I was still armed, they pulled
up in surprise and hesitated. I promptly seized the moment of their
consternation and went straight at them, clubbed the nearest and was
making for the next when I heard a whoop behind me, suggesting an
attack from the rear.
I turned to meet it, and to my intense relief saw Hans standing by the
two ladies. "Come on, Hans," I called, and he was by my side in a
jiffy. We had a rough and tumble for a few seconds in which he joined
like a brick, and then relief arrived. We heard the sound of horses,
with the jingle of accoutrements, and the next moment a small troop of
cavalry turned the corner of the street, and we left the rest of the
proceedings to them. They soon scattered the mob, who fled in all
directions except ours, and the street was quickly cleared, leaving the
car the one conspicuous feature in the foreground.
As the chauffeur was nowhere to be seen and the old lady couldn't walk,
I sent Hans back to her and went to see if the car had been much
damaged. It had certainly been in the wars; stripped of everything,
even to the cushions, but the engine was all right, so I started it,
climbed in, and backed to the spot where the ladies were.
Then it flashed suddenly on me what an ass I was making of myself to
let any one see that I knew anything about cars; but it was too late to
make a pretence now, and I consoled myself with the reflection that
there was no need to let the people know who I was.
But there I reckoned without Hans. The mother had sufficiently
recovered to get up, and was speaking to him when I reached them, while
Hans and the daughter were casting sheep's eyes at each other in a
fashion which told tales. They were evidently old friends, and a little
bit more; and I wasn't, therefore, surprised when the mother knew me as
Lassen, Hans' cousin.
She was awfully sweet and grateful and the tears trembled in her eyes
as she thanked me, holding my hand in both of hers, declaring that both
she and her daughter owed me their lives, and making so much of the
matter, that I had to chip in with a suggestion that she had better get
home as soon as possible.
"But how?" she exclaimed hopelessly. "Where's Wilhelm?"
But Wilhelm, evidently the chauffeur, was nowhere to be seen; and there
was nothing for it but to volunteer to drive the car myself.
All this time friend Hans had been making the best of his opportunity
with the daughter, who also thanked me profusely when I had helped her
mother into the car.
"Where am I to drive?" I asked as I took the wheel.
"Hans knows the way," suggested the daughter, with the faintest little
flush of confusion as she hazarded the suggestion. He grinned.
"Come along then, Hans," I said; and he nipped in and told me where to
go and which way to take.
"Rather a nice little child," I said presently, chipping him; the girl
was about sixteen, I guessed, as her hair was still down. But he
resented the speech.
"Child! She's only a year younger than I am," he exclaimed quite
indignantly.
"So that's how the wind blows, eh?"
"I wish to Heaven I'd come up sooner; but I say, you did make a fight
of it, cousin. Nita's been telling me all about it. She says they'd
have been torn to pieces if it hadn't been for you. You're a lucky
beggar!"
"I don't take too kindly to that sort of luck, Hans, I can tell you."
"I only wish it had been mine," he declared regretfully.
"You did all right as it was when you came; and of course she saw you.
Rather a pretty name--Nita."
He smiled self-consciously and coloured. "But her mother didn't; if she
had it might change her opinion and----" He didn't finish the sentence
and exclaimed: "But I say, you do know how to handle a car!"
This didn't suit me, however, so I went back to the pretty Nita. "The
mother's against it all, eh?"
"Only for the silly reason that we're too young. And I shall be an
officer in a month or two; but the Baroness is like Rosa in that, she
can't understand when a fellow's grown up."
"It'll come all right when you've been in the army a year or two," I
said consolingly.
"A year or two," he exclaimed in some dismay.
"Well, if she won't wait for you as long as that, she isn't worth
bothering about, Hans."
But he wasn't in a mood for any philosophic consolation. "But she will;
she's said so a hundred times. There's no doubt about her; but there's
something else; somebody else, rather."
"And which are you? Number one or number two?"
"Oh, I don't mean with her; but old Gratz has some one else."
"And what's he got to do with it?"
"Johann! Seeing that he's her father, he's got everything to do with
it, of course."
This was something like a jar in all truth. He was about the last soul
in Berlin who ought to know that I had so far recovered my memory as to
be able to handle the car. "Do you mean that this old lady is Baron von
Gratzen's wife?"
"Of course she is. I thought you knew it."